


43: The Practice

by light_source



Series: High Heat [43]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:46:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- I’ma pull over, says Zito with effort, pushing out a breath and writhing his hips against Tim’s hand - so you can give that the attention it deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	43: The Practice

**Early November 2008  
West Hollywood**

\- It’s like living with Mary Poppins, says Zito, - but, like, an _evil_ Mary Poppins, not the one who gives you candy and sneaks you out of the house.

Here, out on the edge of the patio, Zito and Lincecum are watching the sun draw away behind them, emptying the valley below into shadow. The city’s splayed out in front of them, a jumble of shiny and dull, glittering like one of those clearings in the woods where people dump their old tires and torn-up lampshades.

Behind them, in Zito’s house, Brian Wilson’s supervising the chef he and Barry have hired to produce the five meals a day designed for them by Sonam, Brian’s nutritionist.

\- Brian’s a fucking maniac, says Tim, - but you knew that, so why sign up for the whole off-season? I’m still trying to get my mind around it.

\- Seemed like a good idea at the time, says Barry, - you know, healthy living, strength training, the mind/body thing. What’s not to like? I guess I just kinda forgot how Brian can be.

\- He’s crazy enough during the season, Tim says. He whistles down the last hit off the joint they’ve been sharing, tosses the roach onto the tile patio and grinds it out with his toe. - But during the season, at least he’s got baseball to think about.  Obsess about. Now it’s just you and him and the bench press.

\- And the yoga mat, says Barry. - And the Pilates nazi who comes here on Tuesdays.

\- Whatever, says Tim, - I’m changing my ticket. Go back earlier. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Zito rolls his eyes; Tim’s only been here since lunch.

Barry extracts his phone from his pocket and hands it to Lincecum. - The Delta number’s on there, bud. He nods at Tim. - C’mon, do it. Nothing’d make him happier. You’re a bad influence, you know. He’d love to see the back of you.

Tim smiles. After scrutinizing the phone’s lotus screensaver, he hands it back to Barry.

\- Yeah, I know I'm a bad influence, he says, looking at Zito crosswise. - That’s what I’m here for.

//

Kenji, the chef, brings them out a white square plate each, food arranged in discrete blobs with dribbles of some kind of sauce connecting them like continents on a map. Brian uses one of his chopsticks to point at some greyish stuff that’s got wavy edges, like pasta, on Tim’s plate.

\- Seaweed, he says, - very nutritious. Good source of iodine. And B-vitamins.

Tim looks over at him.

\- Um, says Tim, - and what’s the white stuff?

He’s hoping it’s mashed potatoes.

-Taro root, says Brian, - whipped with lecithin and silken tofu. Perfectly balanced combination of protein, fat, and carbs.

Tim pokes a chopstick into the top of the blob and leaves it there, sticking straight up.

\- Don’t play with your food, Timmy, says Brian. - Breakfast is twelve hours away. You better eat, or you’ll be up in the middle of the night when your stomach turns itself inside out looking for something to gnaw on.

Zito’s looking down at his own plate, smiling. Under the table, Tim feels a poke against his thigh - Zito’s bare foot - so Tim pulls out the chopstick and cautiously licks the smear of white on the tip.

Zito and Wilson look at him as his eyes widen.

\- Needs something, says Tim. - Salt?

Brian rolls his eyes. - Tim, Tim, _Tim._ Americans consume way too much sodium. You want salt, there’s plenty in the seaweed. But wait - I got an idea. - Kenji, he calls out, turning towards the kitchen, - could you bring us some wasabi? And the green tea extract?

//

After dinner, while Brian’s sitting in the lotus position on his meditation cushion reading _The Wisdom of No Escape_ , Zito and Lincecum manage to slip away. When Tim’s stayed at Barry’s before, the snaking slow drive down Mulholland into West Hollywood has always seemed tedious, but now it’s like a long sweet sigh of relief.

\- I think Brian’s the love-child of Jack LaLanne and Dr. Oz, says Zito, who’s been burning the tires around the curves to stay inside the double-yellow. - You know he gets up in the middle of the night and meditates? He wakes me up, doing _jai guru deva om_ in the middle of the living room?

\- He’s not gonna wake you up tonight, says Tim.

He’s got his bare feet up against the dash and he’s circling madly through his iPod to find the playlist Zito asked for. - You’ll be in a junk-food coma by the time I’m done with you.

\- Is that the best you can do? says Zito, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. The music’s started. Tim’s looking at him and he knows it.

\- Oh, yeah, says Tim, - _that._

He reaches over and slides the fingers of his left hand between Zito’s thighs, stroking the soft worn fabric of his jeans, thumb circling the place where the seams meet the fly as he feels Zito’s cock stiffen under his hand.

\- I’ma pull over, says Zito with effort, pushing out a breath and writhing his hips against Tim’s hand - so you can give that the attention it deserves.

\- Food first, says Lincecum, thrusting out his chin. - I’m hungry.

Zito glances over at him and their eyes lock for a moment. Tim breaks the gaze and focuses on the headlights of a car that’s just rounded the turn ahead.

\- Brian’s a perfectionist about healthy living, says Tim, - I’m a perfectionist about other things. What Brian and I have in common, Barry, he continues, - is that we both have your best interests at heart. We just have different _approaches._

Zito opens his eyes wide and pulls his left calf back against the edge of the seat, which has the effect of giving Tim a better grip on his hard-on.

Now Tim’s leaning over, and he’s slid his other hand up Barry’s shirt. He’s circling the backs of his fingernails on Zito’s belly, sliding his thumb underneath the waistband of his jeans and underwear so that the left-hander’s skin shivers.

\- After you’ve found me something to eat, Tim says, breathing the words into Zito’s neck, right below his ear - I’ll see what I can do.

//

\- Keep quiet and observe the master, hisses Zito to Tim as they close the front door behind them and flip on the foyer light. It’s nine-thirty and they’re back from their junk-food junket, which required multiple stops so they could load up on the major food groups: fat, salt, sugar, and caffeine.

\- Dude, says Zito to Wilson, who greets them in the entryway wearing a thigh-length kurta and loose-fitting cotton pants. - We took class at Golden Bridge, just made Tej’s eight o’clock. The one with those two girls from K&R that you like?   Kundalini, Zito says expansively, - the chanting was awesome.   I feel totally transformed.

Brian glances at Tim quizzically.

\- Modified, adds Tim helpfully. - Revised.

Wilson looks at him, incredulous. - Modified? _Revised_?

Tim’s eyes get wider and wider as Zito spins an elaborate fiction about what they’ve been doing for the last couple of hours.

\- It was totally cosmic, Brian. You woulda loved it. Tej took us beyond the chakras into the tantra, Zito continues, - you know, partner positions, that shit. You can’t believe what it’s like to do downward dog _à deux._

\- No, you’re right, Barry, says Brian. - I can’t.

\- Luckily I had Timmy with me tonight, he says, pointedly ignoring Wilson’s skepticism and turning to Lincecum, who doesn’t really know where to look, - the flexibility quotient was pretty far up there.

Wilson crosses his arms and leans forward, burying his nose at the sleeve of Zito’s t-shirt and sucking in a deep breath. - You smell like fried chicken, Barry, he says, taking another sniff, - and coffee. Espresso? Brian hauls in another breath, nose and mouth working, and frowns. - Very dark roast.

\- Can’t think why, says Zito without missing a beat. His eyes are wide.

\- Except - now that I think of it, Zito continues, - remember that time Sonam was telling us about olfactory hallucinations? Where your mind makes you smell stuff that’s not really there because it’s trying to remind you about what you’re missing? So you can renounce desire?

Brian uses the back of his index finger to stroke his goatee. He surveys Zito through narrowed eyes. His deltoids and biceps bulge through the thin cotton of his kurta, and in the dim light of the entryway, Tim notices there’s a red dot between his eyes.

\- I think Sonam said hallucinations were one of those signs of increasing consciousness, Zito continues - a sign you’re making spiritual progress.

Wilson harrumphs and turns on his heel, padding down the hall towards the living room. Zito follows him, with a glance back at Tim and a forefinger to his lips. He points to his watch, and then he vanishes around the corner to take part in Brian’s and his closing meditation ritual of the day.

//

\- You’re going straight to hell, croaks Tim as Barry closes the door quietly behind him and slides under the covers. Tim’s been lying here awhile, getting hard just thinking about making love to Zito. He flinches slightly when he feels Zito’s hand stroke along his leg, but he lets out a long sigh when Zito slips into his arms.

\- Where the fuck did you you learn to lie like that?

As Barry presses up against him, Tim feels Zito’s mouth and cheeks curl into a smile against the skin of his shoulder. - Confession, Barry says, - I’m a good Catholic boy. Just like you. Father Wisniewski wouldn’t let us take communion unless we confessed, and when I was seven I hadn’t done that many bad things. So I made stuff up.

Tim flips over on his stomach - he ‘s still hard, and he doesn’t want to give Zito the satisfaction of knowing it - and uses one arm to push Barry away. - I can’t trust you now I’ve seen how you can lie, he says. - Fuck off. _Git._

\- Wait, though, says Zito, squirming up against him, his nose icy and abrupt against Tim’s neck. When Tim feels Barry’s warm tongue all over the whorls of his ear, he can’t help closing his eyes and lifting his chin towards Barry’s lips. - I got an idea, says Zito. - A kind of atonement.

Again Tim feels Barry’s lips smile against his neck. - We’ll do the tantric yoga.  Just in a way Brian might not understand.

Zito rolls back onto his side, crooks his elbow and rests his head on his arm so he’s facing Tim, who’s making a point of not looking at him.

\- Brian’s got this celibacy thing going - he keeps saying _sexual energy must be channeled into athletic endeavor._ Dallas is totally pissed off at him, by the way, says Zito. - They had travel plans - Caribbean or Tahiti or something, I can’t remember - and Brian just junked it all.   Dallas's refused to come down here for Thanksgiving. He says Brian’s gone off the deep end.

\- Brian _lives_  in the deep end, says Tim.

\- So tantra, says Zito, - hey, sit up and face me, kay?

Tim looks up, wondering whether he’s serious. There’s just enough light for him to see the outline of Zito’s face, and when he sees that Zito’s sat up himself and is now cross-legged, he folds himself opposite the left-hander into the same posture, his hands on his thighs. The tips of their knees just touch.

\- Tantra, Zito continues, - is the Sanskrit word for _weaving_. It’s kinda the opposite of the Buddhist idea that enlightenment comes from renouncing desire.

He raises his right hand and leans forward until his mouth is so close that Tim can feel his breath.

\- It’s easier to do it than explain it.  Do what I do, Zito says, - like you’re my shadow.

Tim shoots him a skeptical look. But Zito’s eyes don’t waiver, so he raises his left hand and places it against Zito’s, their palms and fingertips barely touching, and holds it there. The air between their hands begins to warm.

\- Tantric practice is about bringing energy, Zito continues, - the energy that begins at the bottom of your spine, where everything creative and passionate comes from. _Shakti._

He’s still leaning in so close that Tim, feeling Barry’s breath against his neck, turns a little, impatient to put his mouth in the way of a kiss. But Zito ducks away and breathes into the other side of his neck, onto the veins that are standing out there like tendons. Tim, hungry for touch, presses his raised hand impatiently against Zito’s, wanting contact.

He feels Zito breathe out against the corner of his jaw. On his own indrawn breath, he takes in the faint coconut fragrance of Barry’s skin.

\- So tantric practice is cultivating that energy, says Zito - his hair’s just brushing the edge of Tim’s neck, - making it bloom as it moves through your body. In kundalini it’s a cobra, uncoiling, pushing upward.

He slides his left hand slowly down Tim’s side and around his hip till his fingers are touching the root of Tim’s spine, where they splay out, feeling, and it feels so good that Tim holds in his breath. When Barry glances up at him, silently urging, Tim lets his own hand slip down Barry’s side and curve around in the same way, till it comes to rest in that place where his back begins to curve into his ass.

\- Bringing that energy into being with another person, says Zito softly, - _is the most powerful -_

He leans forward and tips his nose, kissing Lincecum’s top lip softly. Tim feels a current of heat surge up from his rock-hard cock; it floods through his belly and spreads outwards to his skin.

_\- practice -_

Zito presses his open mouth gently against Tim’s - just his lips - an emptiness that promises -

 _\- of all,_ he concludes, a low sound rising in his throat, and as Tim presses in toward him, his eyes wide, almost panicked, Zito lets his head fall forward and slowly eases his tongue into his lover’s mouth.

A shock of desire floods through Tim, and for a moment he’s overwhelmed by his own senses - the wry, boyish taste of Barry’s mouth, the faint sweetness of his skin, the way his tongue is asking. Their hands are still palm-to-palm, but hot now, sweating, and their fingers grapple and snake. Barry’s hand is so certain, pushing and pulling his, that Tim feels as if his fingers might crack and break.

Beneath his other hand, Barry’s sacrum warms, his skin soft and slippery under Tim’s stroking fingers. He lets his fingers caress the rounded bone and then slip lower to grasp the rounded globe of Barry’s ass.

Barry’s eyes, nearly black in the darkness, widen a little, and then slowly drift closed as his mouth falls softly open and he leans his head back. Tim tips his head and slides the smooth skin of his cheekbone slowly along the side of Barry’s neck, feeling the gravelly rake of stubble there, and how it fades into the soft hair below his collarbone.

He feels a low hum of pleasure in Barry’s throat. Then, suddenly, the left-hander twists down and ducks his head so that his lips can find Tim’s half-opened mouth, and this time Tim can’t hold back. He sucks in Barry’s tongue and matches it with his own, groaning a little with how good it feels. Without releasing their hands, they twist and strain up against the current of desire that’s risen into their mouths.

//

They’ve been apart since the season ended a month before. Whenever he returns to Seattle, Tim slips back easily into his old routines and relationships. The world he grew up in has shrunk, but it’s still as comfortable as an old t-shirt that won’t stay tucked in.  It works as long as he doesn’t think or talk about Zito. He’s deleted Barry’s dedicated ringtone on his phone; he’s careful not to mention Zito’s name much, or tell too many Zito stories. When he goes to LA or Hawaii, he says it’s to _hang out with the guys._

The problem with this strategy is that the wall of silence and forgetting has no door. His own body gradually begins to seem like something outside himself, an instrument he has to remind himself to practice. He forgets to eat after a couple of days, when everything’s begun to taste the same. Most nights he falls asleep on the couch with his earbuds in, blasting music that blots out his dreams.

So today, at the LAX baggage claim, when Zito had materialized from around the corner of the escalators, Tim had been startled by the surge of desire that had shot up from his gut. Barry’s hand on his shoulder, his quiet voice, his smile were utterly familiar, as was the look in his dark eyes. But Tim, after a month of putting Zito out of his mind, had found himself feeling both ashamed and aroused, wondering how he got here.

//

The yoga thing’s still foggily there at the back of Tim’s mind because he knows Zito takes this stuff seriously. So when Barry tumbles both of them off the bed onto the Persian rug he lets the motion take him. He can’t help smiling, it’s so much like being a kid doing a somersault.  But when he realizes that, in the half-dark, Zito’s ripping open a wrapper and stroking on a condom, he snaps right back into the _now,_ the _yes_ as Barry’s hands, his fingers slippery with lube, tug him forward.

Zito, kneeling on one knee, takes Tim’s ass in his hands and pulls their hips together so that Tim’s erection bumps up against his belly. They’re eye to eye, nose to nose, at exactly the same level for the first time. Zito ghosts his lips across Tim’s, circling around his mouth for a not-quite kiss. When he slowly eases one slick finger into Tim’s ass, the right-hander shuts his eyes and hisses out a breath - he’s already so close.

But when Tim takes hold of Zito’s rock-hard dick and slides his thumb down the shaft, Barry gently sweeps Tim’s hand back around his waist and slides it back onto his sacrum. The brushoff makes Tim grunt with frustration, but the feel of Zito’s fingers inside him soon brings him round, and as it dawns on him what Barry has in mind, he bucks his hips into the finger-fucking, feeling his balls tighten along with every muscle in his body.

\- It’s like a lotus flower, this energy, whispers Zito, brushing Tim’s hair back from his ear, - a flower opening, can you feel it?

Tim’s lifted his hips to let Barry guide himself into him, which he does with exquisite slowness, starting and stopping, teasing Tim until the younger man is breathing hard with frustration, and then he’s in, to the hilt, and the two of them are face-to-face. Tim’s face is contorted with concentration, the way he looks when he’s taking sign out on the mound, and he can’t help himself - he brings both hands up to grasp Barry’s face, so he can hold him there for a kiss so deep and hard that it stops breath.

This position, half-kneeling, half-sitting, takes some strength and some flexibility, like a shoulder stand, Tim remembers, where you keep feeling shifts in your center of gravity. Neither of them is entirely in control; Tim’s hips answer Barry’s, and he’s free to stop when he gets too close to the edge.

Or start some other, newer motion that neither of them has ever really felt before. Tim realizes he can bend forward and take Barry deeper, without losing his hold on Barry's hands, which he's got beneath his own, teasing his nipples. Zito, just by moving his leg, finds he can tilt his hips fluidly in a way that makes Tim arch his back, his eyes half-closed, letting that liquid motion ripple outward in waves of pleasure.

Each man's eyes, open in the half-dark, are locked on the other's.  Though Tim can only see the shadow of Barry’s expression, he realizes that, for the first time in his life, he’s laid himself wide open, floating here in his lover's arms, in the ecstasy of touch.

//

\- So go ahead and eat with your mouth open, says Barry, sucking a strawberry loose from its green cap of leaves. Morning light streams through the uncurtained window, and there’s a big majolica dish of berries between them on the rumpled bed,

\- Food tastes better that way.  

Barry’s got a smear of yogurt on the side of his mouth, and his hair is completely messed up. There are red strawberry smears all over the Belgian linen sheets.

Tim stretches his arms over his head and then drops another strawberry, which he’s dipped in Greek yogurt and honey, into his mouth, and the juice runs out the side.

\- 's there a yoga of eating? says Tim, through his mouthful of fruit.  

\- Tantra is about pleasure as energy, good energy, says Zito, slouching onto his bent arm and leaning forward to use his nose to push Tim’s untrimmed hair back behind his ear.

\- Doesn’t matter what kind, I don’t think, so yeah, eating. And naps, and beer, and foosball, and dogs, and _Spongebob_ , and _Family Guy_ , and getting the last parking space, -

He licks the underside of Tim’s jaw and Tim's shoulder curls up towards his neck - it tickles.

\- So why not explain it to Brian? asks Tim.

Zito rolls over onto his back. - He’s not evolved enough yet, he says with mock severity. - Let’s wait till he exhausts the ascetic phase.

//

**Mid-November 2008  
San Francisco**

The morning it happens, Tim’s been back in San Francisco for a week already; today he’s sleeping late because there isn’t much to do once he wakes up. He spends his days here ricocheting between the weight room and the treadmill and the PlayStation with Sean or Drew or whoever else he can corral into playing. There’s been noise from the FO about his place in the Cy Young race, but he’s up against C.C. and Halladay and a bunch of guys with much better stats than his, so he’s put it out of his mind.

He grabs the buzzing phone and sleepily notices the time - 9:33 - but it takes him a few seconds to figure out what’s happening. As he listens to the voices - it's a bunch of guys around a table notifying him via conference call, the east coast’s already breaking for lunch - he wonders if it’s a practical joke.

When he clicks off the phone he finally screams, and since there’s no one there to listen, he keeps it up all the way through his shower and slapping on a t-shirt and a hat and driving down to the yard.

Later, in the twenty-minute press conference, he's so rattled he almost forgets to thank his teammates but remembers at the last minute, when they’re almost out of time. The reporters pepper him and Sabean and Righetti with questions, but for Tim one in particular stands out: - Have you talked to Barry Zito?

\- He was a little more pumped than I was, says Tim, with a spike of surprise in his gut, wondering for a moment if it shows on his face. - He was like, you gotta make it down soon.

Later, the press pictures capture how funny he looked, rumpled and underdressed as a middle-school kid, in jeans and a white t-shirt and a beanie.

But what Tim sees later is how hard he’s smiling, and why, and what he’s beginning to know about what matters.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The facts about Lincecum's 2008 Cy Young press conference are canon, as are most details about Wilson and Zito's ascetic winter as roommates in LA. For the latter, see hxxp://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090122&content_id=3765750&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
> 
>  
> 
> _All else is fiction, wholly untrue, never happened, never will._


End file.
